grfu wrote:But where do you draw the line, Kelandrin? This rp style is fine for basic interaction like conversation and perhaps even relationships, but it does not lend itself well to combat at all and leads to nothing getting resolved. Suppose my drider knight, with at least 120 years of combat experience under his belt faces off against the 30 year old green-horn. Why should my drider knight attempt anything? He would have that little kid run through in seconds, without even breaking a sweat. In the end, it seems that the ffrpg has fallen into basically a battle of attrition, the winner being the one who can write the bigger wall of text.

TLDR: This rp style doesn't work like it should. Giant walls of text is not roleplay.

If you say that, then you completely missed the point.

This isn't about who wins.

This is about showing your fellow players respect and being considerate towards other peoples enjoyment of the RP.

Your response tells me you didn't properly read my post. I'm saying that in some cases, making an attempt does not make any sense. Once again, I cite the example of my drider knight and 30-year-old green-horn. But that's not exclusive to combat either. A character can, in fact, be skilled enough to just make things happen. Not every action must be an attempt.

grfu wrote:Your response tells me you didn't properly read my post. I'm saying that in some cases, making an attempt does not make any sense. Once again, I cite the example of my drider knight and 30-year-old green-horn. But that's not exclusive to combat either. A character can, in fact, be skilled enough to just make things happen. Not every action must be an attempt.

Oh, no. I read it. I read it through very well.

I'll clarify my point then.

What you proposed in your post is, in the world setting, realistically, what would happen. However. What reason would a player have to attack someone 90 years their junior? I'll tell you of the two possible reasons this could come about.

1. The green horn attacks the drider. In that case, it would be prudent to PM said green horn and inform him that he really has little chance of winning. Talk about it civilally and come to a conclusion on how it could end.

2. The drider attacks the Green horn. Why would he do this? Because he can? Yes, realisitically, the drider could attack the amatuer and wipe the floor with him. When someone who is obviously bigger and stronger attacks someone who is incredibly inferior to them, we call that bullying. If a RP character simply attacks another RP character and does it simply because they can, they are bullying. If the RP character is doing it, then the player who controls them is also being a bully.

Both of you are make very excellent points, however you'll note that if you apply the rules of RPing to your argument you'll realize you're both godmodding by saying 'my way is right, and your way is wrong.'

Another way to look at it would be to say that in the proposed battle between the drider and the green horn, it would be godmodding for the drider to claim any kind of immediate success or resolution. However, it would also be godmodding for the green horn if he/she refused to lose. So, ultimately, in that situation the green horn will always lose if no godmodding is involved. Of course, that does not excuse any insta-hitting/winning on the drider's part.

In more general terms, it is rare that such clear distinctions of power exist. Which is why, in my experience, it is best to assume everyone involved has an equal amount of total power, and then to talk to the person who you're fighting with before hand to determine who is better at what. i.e. agreeing that one character is better at magic, and thus will usually win contests of mana, and that the other character is better at close combat and will thus usually win contests of strength and finesse. Naturally, sometimes they will be of equal power in certain areas, and that is up to the players to resolve between themselves. Other times the players will not be able to agree about who is better at what, and that means the fight should be avoided if at all possible 'cause it will just end up turning into a pissing contest.

Summary:-Auto-successes are never acceptable, no matter how much better your character is.---Unless worked out with your opponent ahead of time.-All fights should be agreed upon beforehand, and all levels of power discussed. ---If no agreement can be made, simply don't get into the fight.-Typically, all Player Characters should be assumed to be of near equal total power, and be better than each other only at individual skills. ---For every skill that is better than the opponent's, there should also be a skill that is weaker than the opponent's.

(Really though, it's not such a big deal. It's all just role-play after all.)

[quote=grfu]Suppose my drider knight, with at least 120 years of combat experience under his belt faces off against the 30 year old green-horn. Why should my drider knight attempt anything?[/quote]You'll wipe his face across the floor and back again. Why should your character even bother jumping into the fray? Besides, more importantly, why would any sane-minded kiddo attack a monster like a drider, with a monstrous aura size and no doubt superior physical strength? All that before you factor skill and the likes.

TLDR: This rp style doesn't work like it should. Giant walls of text is not roleplay.

No. No, no, no.

Role-playing means getting into character, developing one's emotions and the likes. Posting "Kalandrin glares at grfu after his comment" is minimal role-play. But posting "Not really appreciating grfu's comment, Kalandrin gave the drow a glare. She was always touchy about matters like this; discrimination just because she had eight legs and eight eyes always pissed her off" is much better.

Why? It gives depth to the character.

That being said, walls of text are not necessarily role-play, but if they adhere to certain standards they are by far superior to one-liners for a multitude of reasons. Quality over quantity!

The phrase "Quality over quantity" can be applied to word count, my friend. Far too often I see walls of text with no actual content, just flowery nonsense that adds no depth to the character, but rather bores the reader. I'm not saying I'm an advocate of minimal roleplay, but sometimes you can get more content from a single sentence than a paragraph.

grfu wrote:The phrase "Quality over quantity" can be applied to word count, my friend. Far too often I see walls of text with no actual content, just flowery nonsense that adds no depth to the character, but rather bores the reader. I'm not saying I'm an advocate of minimal roleplay, but sometimes you can get more content from a single sentence than a paragraph.

Can you please give me an example of these "flowery nonsense that adds no depth to the character, but rather bores the reader" from any site you would like,, preferably this one?

Going on TOO long can hurt the RP because people skim rather than read through consistantly

At the same time, TOO minimalistic is boring.

Opening posts are generally the time for lots of descriptions, explaining your character's appearance, motivation, etc.etc. After that you should keep stuff simpler, during battles you should keep it short, sweet, and too the point. All in all, it depends on the situation and what you want to accomplish with the post.

And frankly, can we NOT give examples, as it will inevitably end up with someone getting insulted that their specific RP style was slighted and result in a minor flame war. Let's just avoid it entirely ehn?

and on the note of godmodding. Grfu is right in that there are degrees. But so is Blackshade because there are really just god modding, and not god modding. But rather, it's a god mode for a 30 year old green horn to constantly dodge the attacks and not be beaten by a 1000 year old drider knight who probably remembers when Diva first took the throne. So while it's politer for the Drider's player to only 'attempt' actions, it's also god modding for the 30 year old green horn to not be beaten in the end unless it's by sheer luck. The reason for this is god modding is when you 'force' an action on other players right? but also making stuff that happen that just couldn't happen. And let's face it, the chances of a warrior just reaching adulthood beating a drider who is still sane and has several centuries of actual combat experience under his belt are slim to none.

It's not polite, it just is; physically speaking nothing involving the conflict between two people is ever certain, ever. Not between two people who are mobile. A child can survive falling off a two-story building, and even a four year old can run, or hide, or throw a rock.

Under this same principle, a strong character merely goes "Looks at you and you die because he's so awesome" to anyone with an under-rated power-level, that is making all "powerful characters" god-modded in essence.

If a character with the physical maturity of a fifteen year old attacked you, you block it, and then you most likely should simply leave the role-play unless you know the person and want to plan a fun, interactive role-play or you take the chance that said individual understands their character may be at a disadvantage. Sometimes you should give someone the benefit of the doubt before presenting a "I am going to win" case. People typically get quite defensive, defiant, and aggressive when being told "I am stronger, you can't win". Can you see how that would irritate you?

While free-style combat can be entertaining, it's enjoyable to plan such things yes.

That said, I've never been a fan of "PVP" in role-play, simply because - in my opinion - it has no real merit.

And merely using the excuse, "My character is more uber hacks than yours" to win a fight bares little fruit.

The example of the child vs the elder adult is fair, and I'll grant you that sure, it should be conceded. But there is no reason for anyone to simply say "I win, now concede to losing simply because I managed to get an older character approved" when considering to full grown, competent adults. Unless the character has 0 combat capacity, always assume you are on equal terms. Avoiding the obvious circumstances of fighting things like children, as mentioned above.

On a side note, I don't understand why everyone continuously falls into the "Combat god-modding" when there are many other examples. Conflict is an easy one to "twist" in your favor on discussions like these, merely because beyond a doubt in the back of every human being's mind is the "I am right" mentality, however repressed.

So I guess to summarize, Blackshade has a point in the fact that you can never simply assume your character is far more "Uber lite hacks" because yes, that does make you a god-modder. However, Grfu's point of "A child shouldn't be able to fight a drider" is also valid point, because a child being capable of fighting an adult is not entirely practical. However between competent adults, of any age - between role-players - you should never make the assumption, or fallback on - "My character is the shizz". I've seen some fairly powerful characters get approved, and I can say with full-certainty I'd never allow anyone to tell me "My character is stronger than yours, now kindly lose."

Very small note on posting styles as it does not pertain to the actual subject matter; please don't discuss this here, it's not a form of god-modding however you try to explain it. Allow people to post in whatever length, style, or manner they wish, and you simply have to enjoy it, tolerate it, or leave the role-play. There is no perfect style to role-play, it's an imaginary universe, you can't be better at something that doesn't actually exist. So there's a person's options, time tested and true. Enjoy. Tolerate. Leave.

---------------------------------------------------------End quibble.

Now, let's discuss the subject of "reality manipulation"; this is entirely based on the concept that you possess the ability to influence the universe around you - while in real-life our reality is linear, in the realm of fantasy it is for the most part without mitigation. Good thing? Bad thing? Well as always there's a line of neutral gray, it can fall on the benign, or malign - if we want to give an inanimate topic alignment.

Your character for example is incapable of manipulating reality. You as the player though are the borderline omnipotent one. The creator. The imagination, and the source of strength behind which the world flows. All thing's considered, this is a great deal of responsibility for someone, and while having "experience" in role-play can assist, that is rarely a guarantee.

Creating a Room/GMing: This is a tool, not a weapon, personally I do not feel the need to tell people to go one way, when they choose to go another - typically most people establish a room and then think little of it; I agree with this practice. But I have performed, and enjoyed plot-streamed role-play which requires you to pay attention to what the players in your thread are doing. But when does that become God-Modification? Well, quite obviously anything directly involving your character - without your knowledge or consent. Again, quite an obvious one. But what about something like "Making a building come down". Or, "A group of NPC guards"? Some people tend to believe this is a form of God-Modification, and for all intents and purposes is a form of "reality manipulation" - but should not merely be taken as "God-Modification" or "Working against the players maliciously" immediately. It is without a doubt, in one game, or role-play (As I'm sure we've all enjoyed a few) that you've all seen this take place.

Individuals will often describe events[i], [i]settings, and people in their own personal manner. Non-player characters, settings, situations, these are all tools by us the role-players, to use and abuse. I don't need to preach to you about the does and don'ts, they are not clearly defined, but I like to imagine more people than myself get a reasonable "bad feeling" when something takes place that they don't like.

Summary? "Reality manipulation" is a tool, not a weapon - but we are all aware you can kill someone with a shovel, yes?

We as the players feel entitled to our opinion; we are. We feel entitled to quality role-play; we are. However, with that said, you always retain the right to leave any situation you feel particularly bothered by, merely complaining about it, or calling "foul-play" to the nearest Administrator is not always a well begotten way of way dealing with things. Necessary at times, but not always.

While I do not entirely believe that this thread will accomplish anything other than allowing people to express themselves - hopefully in an articulate, honest, and opinionated manner without undue prosecution - there is no harm done by discussing the topic. But let's all make sure to keep it on one topic, not break down into another. *Prods Blackshade* Hey that's your Job.

If I may add my two cents, a lot of forums like this actually have an objective GM rule who is successful at what, etc., like a judge. In one example of an RP battle forum whose name escapes me, the two contenders would post their intended actions - long posts of complicated actions that would be called godmodding - and then the GM consolidates the actions into his own RP post.

Now, I'm not sure how to handle this in the setting of the DT RP forum or if it even can be. As that would be fiddling with the established structure too much, I am not recommending it as a universal solution. Rather, a proposed alternative to a duel be to having a third party judge decide what happens, based on character details or other factors. Perhaps it would be viable to petition a mod to act as a conflict resolution IC, but then I suppose that would require mods dedicated to RP conflict resolution, and I don't know if there are any of those.

I almost suggested a dice rolling conflict resolution, but truly stubborn players would imagine themselves having all kinds of hidden bonus modifiers to their skill rolls, making the randomization factor pointless. I will note that sometimes in my RPing I will roll a die to determine how successful I am at a given task just on the off chance I like the result of the die and decide to roll with it - such as, suddenly, my low-tech pistol malfunctions. Rather than having that planned in advance I let it happens when it happens, and it adds a degree of uncertainty to even an area which I would imagine having otherwise total control. I guess now I'm getting off topic sort of. But it's about conflict resolution, really.